BTG's / SATG's in January - Is it THAT bad?

[Liberator]

I started a thread a while ago regarding a day-visit of both parks a few weeks ago.

I was not aware of tour groups flooding Orlando during Janaury.

But: Is it really that bad when these groups are there?
I can stand singing and chanting, my problem is more that I am afraid that they will raise the crowd level into unforeseen dimensions.

Actually I scrapped the idea of visiting Universal, but I would really like to got but I am afraid that it will be a waste of money.

And, is there a list of closed attractions for the period of January?

 

[RMulieri]

As far a attractions go, Universal does not take their rides out of commission for long rehabs, unless absolutely necessary However, the water rides are the exception in that they take turns closing each one in the colder months for rehab. When we went in Jan last year it was Blutos Bilge rat barges.They generally close each one for 2-3 weeks at a time.When one is done, the next goes down.They don't usually post it too far in advance either. Also closed ...Disaster closed permanently at the studios, Hulk is closed till Summer 2016 for rehab and the Lucy: a tribute also closed permanently.

Now for the tour groups..It depends on when you go and your tolerance for large groups..Usually they arrive after the new year and are pretty prevalent till around Jan 23rd or so where they start going down in numbers.Also your experience depends on which park you happen to be in.If you get lucky, they are in the opposite park from the one you chose.I admit, my tolerance for large groups is pretty small. This past trip was my last Jan trip, there were just too many large groups for me.It wasn't neccessarily the chanting( though that gets annoying), it was the sheer numbers, walking several across and the tons of selfie sticks ,knocking my daughter down to get to the grinch character and wait times at restaurants etc..I will say line times weren't too bad, but that was because we stay onsite and had express passes and would use the express pass to avoid the large group lines.

 

[HM]

We went in July this year and could not believe how may tour groups (mostly girls) were there. There must have been about 10 groups there and most of them had around 50 young people in them (some were smaller). They were usually arriving between 10:30-11:30 when we were leaving for pool time, so we missed them in the mornings but ran into them in the evenings when we returned. However, they seem to leave earlier than closing too. We didn't really have much experience of being on attractions at the same time as them. We lucked out.